


Wickedness we know we can contain

by crookedspoon



Series: All the Kink! [4]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DCU
Genre: Community: 1_million_words, Community: kink_bingo, F/M, Feathers & Featherplay, Mild Sexual Content, Mornings, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2014-10-26
Packaged: 2018-02-22 18:44:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2517941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A slow morning in between missions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wickedness we know we can contain

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "Tips - as in finger and tongue" at 1-million-words' [Slow Sated Sundays](http://1-million-words.livejournal.com/917335.html) and "feathers" at kink-bingo Round 6.

Harley's bored out of her wits. A prick in her cheek woke her up this morning, and she hasn't been able to go back to sleep since.

Propped up on her elbow, she must have traced every single character on Buckshot's body currently not censored by bandages at least twice, and still he doesn't stir. His breathing's deep and regular, and he's giving off heat like a radiator, as if he wants to prepare himself to take "out cold" literally. Unless he's faking it. But to what end? So she'd lose interest and leave him already?

Blowing the bangs out of her face, she dips her head to follow the black lines along his collarbone with the tip of her tongue. Instead of the names of his victims, she reads a craving for recognition in the letters, pride, the need to take credit for his achievements: _look at what I've done. This is my work_. In the beginning, she thought of the names he'd tattooed on himself as a confession, a pathological response to the burden he carried. But A.R.G.U.S. wouldn't have him on lockup if he'd ever regretted what he's done.

Harley trails her tongue along his self-styled medals of honor, lapping up salt from sleep-warm skin, until it hits the edge of his bandages. She's beginning to think he's playing possum on purpose.

Some fine assassin, he is. He would've been dead twice over were she anyone else. Harley would never have let her guard down like that. Could it be that he doesn't regard her as a threat? Awfully trusting, then. That's your first mistake, cowboy. Harley doesn't take too well to being underestimated. Unless it serves her purpose.

Last night's mission – and its aftermath – must have really taxed him. He usually snaps right awake when she so much as looks at him. He got hit in his side, shielding her. Unnecessary move, that. She wasn't about to let anyone cut her vacation time short. She may enjoy her release into the open, but not enough to stay out permanently in a pine box. If they award her that much. For all she knows, they might dump her in the backwoods somewhere, or give her a sea burial in hyperchloric acid.

If Buckshot knew anything, he kept it to himself. He soldiered on until they made it back to their motel room, where he extracted the bullet himself. Didn't want her messing around with it, never mind that she's patched herself up on numerous occasions after Mr. J used her for target practice. Ah, good times. Buckshot did allow her to stitch the wound, though.

When she bit off the thread, she tried hard to do the polite thing and ignore the obvious bulge in his pants. He was ignoring it too – probably used to his body's reaction to pain – and oversaw her work with a gaze drilling her like an auger. _One false movement and you're dead_ , it seemed to say, _Waller be damned._

But Harley has poor impulse control: when her mind latches onto something, she needs to pursue it. Once she finished dressing the wound, she let her fingertips skirt the line of his waistband.

"Need help with that?" she purred, dangerously close to his crotch.

"Thanks for the offer, but I don't trust your smart mouth enough for that."

"So you do have a sense of humor." Harley beamed. "How unexpected. Can ya laugh, too? Or smile, at least? Show me those choppers."

Needless to say, he wasn't too amused about it; he's just like Batsie in that. Never could take a joke. Harley really misses her puddin' sometimes. He always knew how to be the life of the party.

Harley slumps back onto her pillow with a huff. She isn't going to let this pathetic, pasty-faced freak ruin all the fun she's having. He's done that enough. She's trying to build a new life for herself here, with her new friends, even if it meant facing all the charges laid against her, charges he's helped her create. But no matter. She's gonna make this work, and once she's out for good, she's gonna find him and tell him what she really thinks of him. This time for sure.

Turning her head, she finds the prick against her cheek is still there. Really, the proprietors of this dump could have switched out the pillows sometime between year zero and today. She runs her thumb over the offending spot and plucks out a white feather. Punching the pillow back into shape, she plunks into it again and twirls the feather in her fingers, contemplating the curved rachis and tufty barbs. She is bored, but entirely too lazy to get out of bed. She's not allowed to veer far off-grid while they're waiting for their next dispatch anyway, so she has to make do with what's on hand for her to play with.

Which is mainly him right now.

They say to let sleeping dogs lie, but Harley's been a troublemaker for so long she no longer thinks in terms of repercussions.

She touches the feather to his forehead, tickling his hairline with it. He's not wearing his eyepatch at the moment, and if it weren't for the tattoos or the scar over his eye, he'd look shockingly normal. She follows the curve of his brows to the tip of his nose, over his cheek and chin around his mouth. His eyelids twitch, and suddenly his hand's on her wrist just as the feather was about to brush his lips.

"What do you think you're doin'?" he rasps.

"Ah, Briar Rose awoke from her beauty slumber. Here I worried if we'd have to wait a hundred years for a pretty prince to show up and pucker his smoochers."

His mismatched eyes glare harder, and his mouth sets into a grim line, deepening the furrows bracketing it. He thrusts her wrist into her chest before letting go and turns around. With a groan, he reaches for his eyepatch on the nightstand, and Harley uses the chance to shift closer and trail the feather across his outstretched arm, over his shoulder and further down his side. Arriving at his bandages, she skims along their edge, tickling his chest, then up his breastbone.

Leaning back, he expels a breath and asks, "What is it you want?"

Harley doesn't feel the need to answer; she's strangely calm right now, as though caressing him like this has submerged her in a meditative mood. She continues smoothing the tuft along his clavicle, then up his neck. Once she reaches his jaw again, she cups his cheek and turns his face toward her. Trying to kiss him's like bashing your face against a stone slab at first, until he allows it to happen, allows himself to soften up a little.

He pulls her closer, fingers digging into her naked shoulders, skidding down her spine, redefining its shape because she moves with them, arching into his touch. Every shift against the sheets stokes the fire burning just below her skin, kindled by the heat he radiates. Pleasure tingles in the wake of his fingertips, and for a while she can forget the rules to follow and the missions yet to accomplish in order to escape this deadlock they're both in.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Disturbed's song "Avarice."


End file.
